He said I always make things worse.

I traced our last conversation
inside my lip with my tongue,
until it burned like citrus.

My teeth still taste like that night—
miso soup, metallic coffee, a dare—
and the word “almost” said until it split.

I don’t start the fires—
I just know how to fan them
so the smoke spells mine,
so the ashes spell proof.

“You’re welcome for the mirror,” I said,
then, “You flinched first,”
like scripture I was tired of reciting.

He called me a problem
and then prayed for something exciting.
Well, God listens.
And she’s been on my side lately.
(And sometimes inside me.
And sometimes wearing red.)

You say I write like it’s a weapon.
But you brought a sword to my poem.
You heard me speak—and called it war.

I’m not the plot twist.
I’m the motif.
I’m the whisper that keeps showing up
even when you don’t name it.
Especially when you don’t name it.

You wanted a girl who could break
without getting any on your shoes.
Who called it miscommunication
when it was a massacre.
I called it Thursday.

I made you feel.
You made it a crime scene.
Now every sentence tastes like sirens.
But sure—blame me
for the blood in your mouth
when you kissed me wrong.

So yeah—
maybe I do make things worse.
But worse is where the story gets good.
Where you start reading slower.
Where your hands start shaking.

It’s not that I ruin things.
I just ask questions
that don’t look good in daylight.

It’s not that I mean to wreck things.
I just don’t know how to leave a room
without checking every exit
twice.

And labeling each one ‘almost.’

You ever love someone
so hard you forget to be charming?
Me neither.

He thought he was the mystery.
I’m the red string
and the corkboard
and the girl in the basement
with the map of everything that never happened.

You didn’t fall for me.
You fell through me.
That’s not my fault.
It’s gravity.
Or girlhood.
Or God, laughing behind her hand.

Say it again. Slower. This time, with your hands in your pockets.

Sail to me

across the ocean made from my tears—

formed by the hollow you left.

I built this sea for you,

so you'd always have a way back

to where we began.



Reach me

in the places I've buried deep,

the ones even I am afraid to name.

Trace the outlines I've hidden,

and show me I was never

so easily forgotten.



Tell me the story of us,

not through my memory's window—

but in the way you survived it,

in your truths,

the tender ones you held close

when night refused to let you rest,

and I was the ache you couldn't name.



Tell me I still live in your quiet.

Speak the moments I never saw—

where you paused,

where you turned away,

where you missed me

and never said.



Is there a portrait of me

hanging in the corners of your mind?

Paint memories with the palette of our love—

when no one was watching.

Use the colours we made together—

the rise of us,

blush pinks bleeding into amber light,

the bruised violet of our breaking.



Do you still hear me

in the hush between songs?

Do the lyrics still reflect us back at you?


Show me your wounds—

the ones left

when we unravelled

into strangers

who still knew each other too well.

Let me see the shape of your life

without me in it.

Come to me again—

on the tide of every tear I shed for you.

This ocean remembers.

It knows you

better than I do now.



Let it carry you

to the shoreline of our time,

where we loved once—

wild and unguarded,

a flame burning too brightly to last.



There,

we still exist—

untouched by time,

preserved in the hush

between wave and wind,

between what was

and what is now.

First love—

These words, unspoken and raw,

years pass, yet your shadow lingers,

etched into the sound of a worn vinyl record.

There is a place in our minds,

Where it plays in your living room,

Endlessly, since the night we fell.

I recall the verse of the song you played,

a fragile confession of why you are broken,

while you kept parts of yourself hidden,

guarding a truth that’s too painful to own.

That sacred moment—

a scar that whispers secrets,

too brittle to survive.



Now I wander through hallways of our past,

your green eyes—

piercing the hollow spaces of memory,

haunting me with the weight of what was lost.

The bitter burn of whiskey,

the residue of regret—

these remain,

reminders of the words you never spoke,

the ones I needed to heal.



You urged me to leave, to fly,

to conquer this life.

But my wings feel heavy,

a descent into the raw, relentless pain

of a love that both shaped us and shattered us,

leaving wounds that time only deepens.



Music is stained by you,

you’re woven into every note,

recalling to me both what you gave

and what you took away.

Your pain bleeds through every lyric,

questioning me,

forcing me to question myself:

Is it my memory that chains you to the dark?

When will songs ever lose your echo?



I hope you found peace in my songs for you.

And they make your soul rest,

like it did in my arms.

My love falling around you

like a perfect harmony,

a warm melody that lingers,

but that failed to heal.



Our memories are our secret—

only we can navigate their corridors,

only we bear the weight

of love that devoured and pain unspeakable.

We know the agony of unravelling two souls,

once certain they'd found home,

only to carve a void,

grasping at fragments too broken to mend.



The void remains—

I needed you to love me,

more than the numbness you drowned in.

I thought if I could piece you together,

I might somehow make myself whole.

But it was you who broke the chains,

that bound us,

pleading for my freedom,

as if I had ever wanted to be free.

Yet you never truly left, did you?



How can I grasp joy

when your absence lingers like a breath I can't

release?

Perhaps my soul remains entangled

in the silhouette of yours.

I am rich with reason to smile—

For I became the shape of your longing, moulded

my life into what you dreamt for me.

But love is never selfish,

So now I carry the weight of what was broken,

the ghost of what we almost had,

knowing love was never meant to be won,

only given, only lost.



What peace exists at the bottom of an empty bottle?

The torment of the mind only silenced,

quietly growing,

pressing against the walls you built.

I'm still tracing the outline of what we were,

still searching for myself in the wreckage of us.

I once made a home in your sorrow,

and now, without it,

I don't know where I belong.

In dreams, I bear your sorrow, grasping for the

moments you escape your demons.

Release me from this endless ache—

find the strength to let go.

My soul will not rest

until you are at peace.

I wait for you still,

hoping you can heal enough

to set me free, and rise beyond the grip of this

endless night.


Time slipped away as I watched you spiral,

and I needed to reach you, to speak, to be heard

but you were only there in fragments—

the version of you clouded by liquor,

a hollowed shell, shrinking deeper into your

shame.

You pushed me away,

the distance growing,

until I became a stranger.

You left me no choice,

no escape but to walk away.

You gave me only one option:

leave, or be consumed

by the slow, painful erosion of you.



You crafted a shrine for me,

adorned me with wings,

elevated and sacred, untouched by your secrets.

Your last chance at redemption,

a sanctuary where you hid from yourself.

Your perfect lie—

an illusion of salvation.

Once shattered, your adoration

twisted into disdain.

The hand that shaped my wings,

became the force that broke them.

And now, you watch me fall

from the heights you once placed me upon.


Yet I release you, I forgive you,

Love, a quiet thread that ties us still,

A spark woven into the fabric of time,

Never truly gone, but transformed,

gently fading

into the glow of what we were.

I return sometimes to those moments,

not with longing, but with reverence—

like that stolen kiss—

unexpected, breathless,

the words "I love you" spilling from me,

uncontainable, truthful,

your arms, holding me,

an electric hum between us.



This is how I'll hold us—

in the warmth of what we were,

not in the sorrow that followed.

When you remember me,

let it be the quiet depth of my love that remains,

the warmth of my hand resting softly on your

cheek,

the steady, unwavering gaze that held you,

unchanged by time.

Let that be what stays with you—

not the deafening silence that followed,

not the weight of what we lost,

but the light that we held, even just for a moment,

so close to perfect but fragile.

Not perfect enough.

call me hopeless, but i'd rather sit here in silence,
letting the whirlpool of all the makeshift fears
bleed itself dry into non-existence
before i step out and show my face,
wondering if water damage might ruin the appeal,
diminishing the market value of this small business
selling dull knives and doors with no handles.
waiting for another chemical miracle to come through;
every failure should come with a free sample.
call me hopeless, but i'd rather sit this one out,
slipping away as lights approach from the distance,
holding my spot in line for another imminent breakthrough.

I’m always watching myself
watch the world.
Even in love,
I’m already narrating the ending.

I turn silence into stanzas.
Affection into evidence.
Every kiss, a metaphor.
Every absence, a motif.

People think I’m honest.
But really,
I just edit well.

Half of what I write
never happened.
The other half
happened too hard.

I’ve written the same heartbreak
fourteen different ways.
Gave it a new name.
Gave it better dialogue.
Made him softer
so the betrayal feels worse.

I say I’m writing for me,
but I’m always picturing the line
someone might underline
and send to their ex
at 2:03 a.m.

I’ve performed pain
like a dress rehearsal—
highlighted the devastation,
downplayed the shame,
cut the part where I begged
and called it pacing.

There are poems
that made people cry
and replies I never opened.
Because if I read them,
it might mean
I was never alone in it.
And I don’t know
if that would feel better
or worse.

Some nights I write
like I’m searching for proof
that it happened at all.
That he said it.
That I felt it.
That I was the kind of girl
someone could ruin
on purpose.

And if the writing is good enough,
maybe I don’t have to go back.
Maybe I don’t have to forgive him.
Maybe I just have to
survive it beautifully.

So I sharpen the line.
I fix the form.
I leave the ending open.
I publish the ache.

And I tell myself
that counts
as closure.

The betrayal was real.
The good lines were mine.
And maybe closure
doesn’t come in paragraphs—
maybe it’s just a quiet night
I don’t turn into a poem.

Latch onto me as the bee on the budding petal,
And I’ll grace your palate with my kisses;
My fingers thrum against your skin and make
You gasp and shudder, as if the cold rain pricked you.

I want you to be beneath this cloud, to close your eyes and wait:
When the droplets come, chase them with your tongue,
Let them cascade down your cheek and coat your lips,
And let its scent intoxicate your senses.

Let the cloudburst drown your taste so you remember nothing but this,
And your face will be a dripping canvas of clear paint,
The portrait of nature’s bath.

And when the storm passes and the skies clear,
Look up to see the flushing sunlight of my smile
And I will kiss away the remnants of the rain from your mouth,
Until you decide to begin anew.

I envision a world of darkness as I stare into my dreams,
taking me over as I breathe slowly in and out,
my chest rising as the fog coats the windows
of my small room.
The curious sound of scratching attracts my attention
as I notice a pale hand sitting on the edge of the window frame.
Its veins protrude from its coarse skin,
the pulse of its heartbeat thrumming
from beneath the blood-soaked lines in its fingers.
I try to cry out, but my breath comes up short,
as the cold of the night air binds me
to the thin sheets that wrap around me
like an inescapable web.
The hand stretches further into the window sill,
its thick yellowing nails digging deep into the old wood
as it cracks and splinters.
Its breath coats my skin as it moves closer,
staring through blue eyes blazing with joy
as a smile curves up on its crooked lips.
Black chipped teeth rot under bleeding gums,
open wounds, and pain coating my face as I stare,
the terror gripping me, pulling me deeper
and deeper into this abyss.
As it moves beside me, I can finally see
its twisted features in the tiny slivers of moonlight
passing through the window;
my eyes go wide as I know the smile
that now looks so familiar;
the eyes look like a mirror image of my own,
yet weighed down by years of abuse.
The monster I have created now looms so close;
it takes me over with every chemical breath,
every dark laugh as this misty shroud of smoke
begins to surround me,
taking me ever closer to the edge of life,
to the edge of the dream I am forever chasing
but can never seem to grasp.